If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

My show closed this past weekend. The run went quite well, with a few great shows as well as one or two mediocre ones. It definitely was a fun experience overall, but it'll be nice to have my free time back.

Saw Into the Woods, and I was pleasantly surprised at how funny it was. Some issues with costumes (the Baker's Wife's scarf got caught and became a humorous improv during a song, the Witch's hair was caught on a set piece) and props (the cow Milky White on wheels, and the RC [Remote Chicken] Hen That Lays the Golden Egg stole several scenes).

I'm back in college using my GI Bill. To fill a curriculum requirement I'm taking Theater Appreciation. Naturally, as part of the class, we have to see 2 plays the school is putting on. A few weeks ago, I saw Dracula. It was a little slow, but overall pretty good. Next weekend I'm going to see Spring Awakening, which is more adult oriented from what I've been told. It is not the musical version. A couple girls in one of my other classes are in it, so it should be interesting.

Saw a very good and very simple high school production of The Elephant Man last night. You only saw John Merrick disfigured in photos projected behind the stage; the actor playing him was twisted and just limped around on a walking stick and spoke quietly and basically.

Enjoyed Crazy for You, a musical comedy at one of our community theaters last night. The daughter of some of our friends had the female lead. One of my wife's former third graders (now in high school) was in the chorus. Nice, intimate theater (The Spotlight Theater) that seats around 100 people. Good times!

Outdoor performance at the Redlands Bowl of Merchant of Venice. Some of my coworkers met before it for a picnic-style potluck, then moved to the seats. If any of you have ever seen the Aladdin show at Disney's CA Adventure, that's similar to the style of this version of MoV. They took three plays (MoV, As You Like It, and Titus Andronicus) and set them in different genres (over-the-top farce, western, and gothic); pretty good and quite funny. Especially liked the off-stage sound effects for characters and repeat lines. And the weather held up, too.

Friends and family went to a local theater to see "The Producers" last night. Extremely well done. Many from the cast were alumni from Mrs. TeeEye 7's school which is a magnate school whose specialty is the performing arts.

Two one-word-title plays this week: a high school production of Postmortem, a 1920s murder-or-suicide mystery (good props, including the couch I donated to the school, and good acting), and a local community theater of Rumors, a Neil Simon farce that was quite funny.